Sometimes things don’t go as we planned them especially in child care, we cannot predict how children will react to activities we have planned or an environment we have spent along time setting up. How we reflect to these experiences can shape how we work with children going forward. Reflection is a great thing, reflecting on what happened- good and bad can help us to progress both professionally and personally. If we don’t look back and learn from what we have done, we cannot see our strengths and weakness , this allow use to implement any change to improve how we work with children.
As an early years practitioner I am constantly reflecting on my work with the children in my care. Each day working with children brings many challenges because you never know how children are going to react to an activity or an environment you have spent a lot of time planning and setting up. I leave my setting and I find myself reflecting on what I have done that day. I think about the activities that I have carried out and how I can make them better or change them for a different age group or child’s interests or needs. I also ask my colleagues to give me feedback on a regular on my activities, this gives me views from someone else’s perspective. My reflection and feedback from others is helpful for me to make any changes or improvements to my practice to make me a better practitioner which will benefit the children I care for and help support their learning and development.
My setting holds monthly team meeting where myself and my colleagues get an opportunity to share any honest and constructive feedback for each other and any ideas we may have for future activities or events. This have been beneficial to me because I get to learn from the people I work with and gain feedback on how I am doing on a practical level from people who know my role and have plenty of experience. I know that I will need to continue my learning going forward through additional training course and updating my knowledge because the sector of child care and education is continually changing as a result of the creation of new policies, procedures and guidelines through government or legal changes and professional requirements. I welcome new knowledge and experiences both professionally and personally as they will help me take care of the children at my setting and support their development.
When researching reflective practices I found some theoretical perspectives on the matter which help you go through the reflective process and improve you practice which ban benefit both you and the children in your care. Kolb proposed a learning cycle which can be used to help individuals to reflect on their learning and understand where they can make improvements. The cycle is make up of 4 processes:
Concrete experience- Doing something so in an early year setting this would be teaching children a game. Reflective observation- this is about the process of reflecting on the experience- teaching, so thinking about what worked well and what didn’t work so well. Abstract conceptualisation- the process of developing new ideas, ways to change the game to make it interesting to the children and meet the children’s needs. Active experimentation-the process of putting new ideas in to practice. All 4 processes need to be completed in order for effective learning to take place. So, individuals use the learning cycle to think about areas of their practice that need developing in order to implement changes and then review them again to make sure they are working.
Gibbs’ reflective cycle , this is an adaptation of Kolb’s learning cycle.
Description- What happened, Feelings- What the person what thinking and feeling when it happened, Evaluation- What was good and bad about the experience, Analysis- What sense can they make of the experience. Conclusion- What conclusions can be made, Action Plan- Putting new ideas in to practice.
He made a much more structured approach which individuals can use to after a situation has occurred to help them reflect on their actions and responses. It will help them to come to some conclusions about what they can do differently in the future to make it better.
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